Newspapers at Footnote.com
Mar 29th, 2009 by sharbrough
Small Town Papers
The only thing small about small town papers is the size of the towns. Well, some of them are small. There is a paper from Boston. There are over 1.8 million pages in this group of newspapers. They come from 48 states plus British Columbia (not a state yet). There are plans for 20 from West Virginia alone, and I’m thinking those towns must be small indeed. Does not include the Grantville Gazette.
The dates covered are pretty much hit and miss. Some of these papers are from the 1800’s, and some are from the 21st century. You can find the Kennedy Assassination, movie ads from the 40’s, and more sundries than you can dry in the sun. One of my favorites was the small Indiana paper which acknowledged a lapse in publication, saying that “excuses are in order.”
Browsing Newspapers
For the most part, browsing of newspapers is a process of choosing a title, then a year, then a month, and then a date. There was a time when the newspapers were browsed geographically, so that you could see which 20 papers were from West Virginia. Once you’ve chosen to browse a specific paper, you can either browse by page, or go to the viewer, and use the film strip to peruse the paper. Some of the small town papers are very short, less than 10 pages.
